When PCs activate their Self Destruct sequence

[Ambrus]

The only time I've ever gotten self-destructive with a character was when the DM was driving a runaway railroad plot. For me at least, having my sincere role-playing efforts thwarted by a DM determined to have the PCs behave in a certain manner regardless of what they try gets me very angry and frustrated rather quickly. When I feel I've exhausted all reasonable efforts on behalf of my PC to affect or change the plot thread to little or no effect then I begin to take unreasonable actions that may in fact prove self-destructive, simply as a desperate attempt to affect a plot that appears immutable.

It's not a conscious decision on my part, the situation simply begins spiralling out of control. When it's all said a done and a DM seems unwilling to allow PCs to effectively affect the campaign setting then the life of one's character appears to be the only thing left that the player can control, at least as far as ending it goes. In effect, I'd rather jump off a railroading plot device to my death then be forced to endure the ride. I don't know if any of this makes sense to others or not. :\

 

[painandgreed]

It's not a conscious decision on my part, the situation simply begins spiralling out of control. When it's all said a done and a DM seems unwilling to allow PCs to effectively affect the campaign setting then the life of one's character appears to be the only thing left that the player can control, at least as far as ending it goes. In effect, I'd rather jump off a railroading plot device to my death then be forced to endure the ride. I don't know if any of this makes sense to others or not. :\

Been there. Done that. Seen it done. It can be incredibly frustrating for the DM when the PC in question must survive for his train to get to the station, and amusing for the players. We had a very scripted Dragonlance game that was like that that ended up with all the characters being self destructive. Everytime we ventured away from the script or died, the god-like DMPC would show up and raise us or tell us which way we should be going. Eventually, one character tried to get into fights with the NPCs who would not fight him. Another insulted the DMPC. Others just gave up on the plot and ran amuck except for the DM's wife's annoying kender who was half the problem. It was a case of solving the problem by replacing the DM (and why I can't stand Dragonlance, especially not kender, to this day).

 

[Quasqueton]

Regarding the first scenario, immediately after the TPK, the Player offered to run a game. He then railroaded us through a terrible game. After about 10 game sessions, 3 of us bailed out of that group, and I've been DMing them (and others) for 3 years, now.

The second scenario, the Player apologized for screwing up so royally. He still plays in my game. He can't even explain why he went so overboard and crazy. He loved the campaign, in which his character was a major plot point, and regrets not seeing how the campaign would have turned out.

The third scenario is as someone mentioned, the Player was just role playing how he saw his character reacting to the situation. Although I like folks to role play their characters, there is a point at which a Players should realize, "I'm about to destroy a campaign over a dead horse. Is it really worth role playing right over the edge, possibly taking other characters with me?"

As for no such thing happens without the DM letting it happen, that's easy to say if you think you can identify such scenarios before or as they start to happen. It's much more difficult to stop the scenario when it isn't apparent what is going down until things are already in motion. DMing is much easier in hindsight or from the sidelines; much more complicated and difficult sitting in the chair behind the screen, in the moment.

Quasqueton

 

[gizmo33]

Have you seen examples of PCs going down the self destruction path? I’m not talking about just making a foolish mistake – I’m meaning a Player/PC really pushing hard to get killed.

There are plenty of players who want to stay alive in my campaign world that I'm not about to be held hostage by someone who is suicidal because they don't like their character or are having a tantrum because their pet got killed. I'm not a thespian DM either, so a TPK IMC makes for a good introduction to the adventure for the next set of characters: "Many adventurers have entered the dungeons of Mount Doom, none so far have survived."

Granted, some NPCs or story lines end with the death of a PC, but the alternative seems like railroad DMing to me. PCs have a right to be killed in my campaign.

Some of what you're describing might be PvP, but two of the three situations what just a bunch of players doing something stupid with their characters because of the actions of one other player. Why do they call it "playing" if you can't do anything to get killed?

I say let them play their characters. This thing has a way of correcting itself unless the DM is constantly stepping in to fix it, in which case the players quickly realize that it's not their job to keep their characters alive. Then they start acting like Bill Murray's character in "Groundhog Day".

 

[Hypersmurf]

I've only seen this from one player, who would quickly tire of a new PC after only a couple of sessions. At that point, he'd try to get his old PC killed so he could bring in another.

One scene I remember....

Player: "Finally! That puts me at -6, unconscious. Don't anyone heal me!"
DM: "Roll your stabilisation check."
Player: "But I don't want to stabilise!"
DM: "You're unconscious - you don't get a vote. Roll it."
[roll]
Player: "Damn it!"



-Hyp.

 

[Jubilee]

Quasqueton - I hope you don't get too ofended at me for saying this, but I don't think you can blame all three situations entirely on the players in question. I think the GM has to be held mostly responsible for a campaign that gets destroyed by the actions of a single player.

IMO, in all three of those situations, I think it would have been a wise GM move to call the game to a halt, to either give the respective players a chance to cool down, or to give yourself the opportunity to speak with them and come up with another solution. IMO, a GM -ALWAYS- has the ability to prevent a TPK.

That said, I had a character who nearly self-destructed after someone almost killed her elemental cohort during a ship to ship battle. I didn't know it at the time, but someone had actually saved the cohort. My character continued to fire spells at the person responsible after the rest of the party was trying to negotiate a truce - until our party leader finally yelled at her enough times to stop, and she did. Even if she had gotten herself killed (she was outmatched), I don't think it would have ruined the campaign unless the GM allowed it to.

/ali

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

With one particular DM, the fear of death is somewhat almost non-existent. He sometimes misjudges ELs and wipes out the whole party in a few rounds. The party sometimes plays stupidly and ends up being vainquished. Nevertheless, practically no one ever dies. In these situations, I react quite immaturely, I admit, and start to play my characters stricken with an awful case of wanting to die. I'll hurl myself at any danger, try to have myself wiped out in such a way that there is no plausible way for the others to bring me back.

It doesn't always work.

AR

 

[SpiralBound]

I have a friend I occasionly play with whose characters nearly always reach a point of no return where "something" just snaps and the character ends up killing himself in the most spectacular ways. Sometimes other characters gets dragged into the maelstrom that is his swan dive, sometimes not. No one (usually) minds that he does this though since the stories that get created by his runaway death self-destructions are always extremely entertaining.

 

[Dog Moon]

I've only seen this from one player, who would quickly tire of a new PC after only a couple of sessions. At that point, he'd try to get his old PC killed so he could bring in another.

One scene I remember....

Player: "Finally! That puts me at -6, unconscious. Don't anyone heal me!"
DM: "Roll your stabilisation check."
Player: "But I don't want to stabilise!"
DM: "You're unconscious - you don't get a vote. Roll it."
[roll]
Player: "Damn it!"



-Hyp.

Haha. That's awesome. I know I've occasionally had myself [err, my character] killed when I disliked him. I tend to do foolish things, but they're the kind of things that kill me and only me. Like 'Ooo, that statue has gems for eyes. *touch* ow, that deal 57 damage. Well, what if I touch the other one? *touch* 63 damage? Oh, that kills me.' The other players thought I was being stupid. They're like 'Why the heck did you touch it the second time?' but I just wanted to play a new character.

That's something interesting about me: the less I like the campaign/am having fun, the more characters I go through. It's because I really don't care. Fortunately, I tend to not be the only one not having fun. I think the time I lost 3 chars in one day, that campaign ended that week or the next. [Not because I ruined it, but it was kind of the signal that all was bad in the world and that ending now was best]. Because if the campaign is fun but I'm not enjoying my character, I try to find something or do something to make him/her interesting again.

But totally destroying a campaign? Nope, never happened THAT bad.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I've had players in the past who activiated their personal self-destruct sequence when trying to kill of their current PC to play a new one (though why they never just asked to bring in a new character is beyond me -- one who did discuss it with me we managed to turn into a great, dramatic session).

I've never seen that take down a campaign ... though I have seen more than one evil character in a party take down a campaign.